A back channel communication may be defined as one in which signal are delivered to a device asynchronously to maintain a real-time communications.
Television system operators, such as but not necessarily limited to those associated with cable, satellite, and Internet based delivery networks, may rely on various proprietary or closed devices to facilitate delivery of television signals or other service related signals to an endpoint at a subscriber location. A primary device may be included at the endpoint to interface the signals with the subscribers. It may be desirable to notify secondary devices of operation changes and other events taking place at the primary device, particularly if applications operating on those secondary device are related to the service being consumed through the primary device, e.g., an interactive application operating on the secondary device may be configured to facilitate product advertisement for a television program being supported through the primary device.
Configuring the primary device to provide the desired notifications to the secondary devices can be difficult, particularly if the primary device is proprietarily configured or has limited processing or communication capabilities. The present invention contemplates ameliorating this difficulty by relying on back channel communications, and/or more particularly, devices and capabilities of the supporting system operator to communicate desired notifications to the secondary devices.